Opening civil society data through the Voluntary Sector DataStore

Jenny Clark and David Kane from the UK’s National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) are bringing civil society to the open data table through their Voluntary Sector DataStore and associated initiatives.

Jenny and David talk about ‘dipping the toe in the water’ to bring together the data collected held and collected by voluntary and community organisations in the UK, and support civil society to contribute to and benefit from open data for the public sphere.

We had this idea that open data was the next big thing for the voluntary sector and possibly something that could really help organisations to change the way they run themsevles and the work they do… but we also knew the sector was starting from scratch.

About Jenny Clark

Jenny is the Research Manager for the NCVO and has managed NCVO’s quantitative research programme since 2008. Jenny has specialist skills in labour market analysis, survey design and data analysis and has written a number of user friendly research publications including the NCVO Almanac series. Jenny has nine years research experience within a public policy department and holds an MSc with distinction in Advanced Social Research Methods and Statistics.

About David Kane

David Kane is a research officer, leading on the quantitative analysis of data for NCVO’s work on the size and scope of civil society, and is an author of the UK Civil Society Almanac 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2012, the State and the Voluntary Sector and the UK Voluntary Sector Almanac 2007. David leads NCVO’s involvement in research to classify voluntary sector organisations and in open data.

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